Decadent Dreams

“I’m free for a meeting this weekend, as well,” she said in a voice that wasn’t husky but wasn’t dainty and feminine like her cousin Monica’s, either. It was simply Belinda, to which Malik had learned to classify a lot of things about her.

“You’re not invited,” Drake told her with a quick smile.

“Sorry.” Malik added his own smile when she eyed him suspiciously. “No girls allowed.”

“Very funny,” she said, standing and walking from the table.

Her perfume was heavenly, Euphoria by Calvin Klein. He knew it well and wanted to personally thank Calvin for creating the scent that matched the woman so expertly. He was about to turn and say something else to Belinda when the front door opened and Shari Drayson walked in.

“Grandma’s here. Time for the meeting.”

Chapter 2

Lillian Reynolds-Drayson walked into the kitchen with an air of royalty that rivaled Queen Elizabeth. She was a tall woman, almost five-seven, with skin the color of warm honey weathered only slightly by time. She wore a rose-colored suit, the skirt modestly five inches below her knee, the jacket custom fit with floral appliqués at the shoulders and down the lapels. She loved pastel colors as much as she loved fresh flowers. But what Lillian loved most was this bakery and her grandchildren, most of whom were assembled around her.

“Good morning. I know you’re all wondering why I called you here this morning so I won’t beat around the bush,” she said.

Lillian stood at the head of the twelve-foot-long stainless steel worktable. To her left, her grandson Drake sat on a stool, his briefcase and paperwork spread out in front of him. Drake always had paperwork because his mind was always busy. That had been the case when he was a child and more so now that he’d grown up and decided he was better at marketing and advertising than he was at baking. After he’d graduated college and come into the fold, he’d brought new-generation fundamentals and visions into Lillian’s. He’d been the one to suggest those dang computers that took over most of the duties that Lillian and Henry had done themselves. Not that Lillian was complaining. She knew the day was coming soon that she would no longer stand at the helm of this business, dictating what its next step would be. And she wasn’t sad about that. It was the natural course of things. Life had to go on. Together she and Henry had built this legacy so that one day they could sit back and watch their offspring continue on with its success. She’d been fortunate that her grandchildren had the same talent and passion for baking as she did. While her children had also learned at her elbow, watching everything she did, tasting her new creations and helping in the early days of the bakery, they’d all seemed to grow in different directions.

But Lillian wasn’t one to be deterred. She knew at some point there would be someone to pass down the bakery to. Sitting right beside Drake was his sister Belinda. A more beautiful child Lillian swore she had never seen. A natural talent in the kitchen, tenacious and unwavering in everything she did. Lillian prayed especially hard, however, over this one every day.

To her right was another one of her granddaughters. Shari was a quiet one, very talented and a great mother to her four-year-old son, Andre. Lillian was proud of how dedicated a mother and a baker Shari had become. She only wished her granddaughter would one day experience the fulfillment of a good relationship.

Monica was her other granddaughter, but she wouldn’t be at today’s meeting. Monica had spearheaded one of their newest ventures, the production of dry cake and cookie mixes to be boxed for sale. Today she was meeting with their attorneys and distributors to discuss how to get Lillian’s gourmet mixes onto the shelves in as many stores as possible.

Standing beside Shari was a young man who was like a grandson to Lillian. She was the first to admit that she’d initially had doubts about Malik Anthony when he had no choice but to make a complete U-turn from a sports career to delivering cakes and pies all over Chicago. But Henry had convinced her to give the boy a chance. Her dear sweet husband had seen something in this young man that Lillian wasn’t quite sure was there. However, over time Malik had definitely proven himself to her and to this business.

She had another grandson, Carter, who was mysteriously missing from this meeting. That fact she would definitely deal with later.

“As you might know already, Daisy just returned from Los Angeles, where she had a meeting with a television studio.”

Malik stood up from his seat, going over to help Lillian. Taking her elbow, he guided her down as she angled for the stool behind her.

“Thank you, son,” she said with a smile.

Drake was also moving, bringing her a mug that Lillian knew would be filled with her favorite hazelnut coffee—three creams, one sugar. These boys had been raised right and would one day make some woman very happy.

“Daisy attended on behalf of the bakery. When she called me to report that the meeting had been successful, I was beside myself. Henry and I are very excited about this opportunity.” As she spoke, Lillian was careful to look around the table at the faces of the people who helped make this a renowned bakery.

In the back of her mind she knew that these bright and talented individuals would need more to draw from than just their undeniable talent for baking, a pretty face or charismatic personality. This was a big opportunity for them, and Lillian only prayed they would be able to come together to pull it off.

“One of those reality TV shows that your generation loves to watch has offered us a place in their next competition, I believe they call it...” she said, looking over at Drake for his input.

Drake nodded and pulled out of his briefcase a couple pamphlets that he passed among his sister, his cousin and Malik.

“You Take the Cake is the Festival of Foods channel’s highest-rated baking competition. It airs live weekly and features four bakeries that go head-to-head in a cake baking competition. The prize is one-hundred-thousand dollars and national recognition. We’re slated to compete in the next competition, which is two months from now,” Drake said, barely containing his excitement.

“Are you serious?” Shari asked first as she looked up from the pamphlet to Drake.

“Daisy was very serious about this deal,” Lillian answered. “As am I. I hope you all know how important this is.”

She heard Belinda sigh as she read Drake’s meticulous outline of the details of the competition. He paid as much attention to the details of his marketing presentations as Belinda did to everything else, whether it was baking or simply getting dressed. That girl needed everything to be just right. She’d been that way since she was little, and Lillian had watched her coordinate all the books on her shelf in alphabetical order then make sure each book was lined precisely so that none were sticking out farther than the others. Belinda had even played neatly, keeping all the clothes from her Barbie dolls stored in labeled ziplock bags. And when she packed them away, she was careful to smooth down the hair of each doll before laying them in the box and closing it. Then she would carry the box ever-so-slowly before slipping it under her bed. While Drake’s room usually looked like a hurricane had swept through it, Belinda’s, even at seven years old, looked as if she’d hired a maid to come in and clean it. The last time Lillian had been to Belinda’s apartment, she noted her granddaughter’s ways hadn’t changed over the years.

“So we’re going to compete with another bakery on a national television series?” Belinda asked.

Drake smiled. “Yes, that’s exactly what we’re going to do. And we’re going to win this competition because once we do, Lillian’s will be recognized as Chicago’s number-one bakery.”

“We’re already Chicago’s number-one bakery,” Shari added.

“But this will make us official,” Drake told her.

“This will make us national,” Malik spoke up finally. “With the win under our belt, Monica won’t have any problem getting the stores to carry the mixes. We could open another location, branch out to have shops in different states.”

“Now you see where I’m going with this,” Drake said. “This is a phenomenal opportunity for us. Once we win, we’ll be golden!” Drake told them, unable to contain his enthusiasm.

Even Belinda had smiled at that. “Winning would be a coup for us. We’ve already been featured in a couple cooking magazines but with this we’re liable to make the cover. And Festival of Foods has a great national following. They’re the top food channel out there.”

“We could try some new recipes,” Shari said, tapping her fingers on the pamphlet as she talked. “Do something nobody has ever done before. Different flavors and fillings.”

Belinda nodded. “You’re right. We need to think about designs, too. Those shows pay a lot of attention to detail. Do we know what the theme is?” she asked.

Drake’s smile widened. “Around the World. We’ve got five different countries to work with. Five unique opportunities to show why we’re the best.”

“And since we are the best, we’re going to wow those judges with our cakes!” Shari added, her excitement showing in the smile on her round face.

“Not so fast,” Lillian interjected. “You all are rushing into this like winning is the only possible outcome.”

“It’s called confidence, Grandma,” Drake added, still smiling.

“The same confidence the Hare had when he thought he was a shoo-in to win that race against the Tortoise,” she replied with a frown. “Just because we bake good cakes here inside this bakery doesn’t mean we’ll be able to do the same thing in another location, against other bakers. Talent is not enough for this competition.”

“We’re not trying to be overconfident, Grandma,” Shari said. “We just know what our strengths are. We know what we’re capable of because we had the best teacher.”

Lillian could have smiled at that compliment but she didn’t want her grandchildren to become complacent. She hadn’t gotten this far in this business by believing she was the best; she’d done it by showing she was the best. Not just in baking, but in customer service and professionalism. This had been no easy feat, and she wanted her grandchildren to realize that.

“And that’s why I’m going to teach you something else,” she told her grandchildren. “This competition can only be won if you all work together. Teamwork has got to be the key. If all of you go out there trying to show that you personally are the best, you’ll fall flat on your face.”

“We know that we’re a team, Grandma,” Belinda added.

Lillian shook her head. Belinda came from what Lillian liked to call “Team Me.” She believed that she was the best at everything and so she rarely let anyone help her. She was independent to the point of being a loner and that definitely was not going to work.

“Then it’s time you all showed it. Play your strengths and divide and conquer. I want the team to win, not one of you. Your grandfather and I are looking to retire and we’d like to know who’s able to run this company and who’s not,” she said pointedly, being sure to look at each and every one of them that was there.

“We get it, Grandma,” Drake said after a moment of silence.

Shari nodded and reached out to touch Lillian’s hand. “We’ll make you proud.”

“I’m already proud,” Lillian said.

“Do you know who our competition is?” Malik asked Drake.

“They’re all listed in the back of the pamphlet. Two of them are relatively new but one—” He stopped to look up at Shari.

She had just flipped to the back of the pamphlet and they all knew the second she read the list of names because she dropped the pamphlet.

“I can beat her,” Shari said defiantly.

By “her” she was referring to Dina English, owner and head pastry chef at Brown Sugar Bakery.

“This is not the place for personal grudges,” Drake told Shari.

She lifted her chin and took a deep breath. “I don’t hold grudges.”

Everyone in the room went silent. That was one of the biggest and most blatant lies they’d ever heard. Shari indeed held a grudge against her once-best-friend Dina English, who had not only branched out and started her own bakery, but had taken a few of Lillian’s baking secrets with her. For years Dina had been like a member of the Drayson family, working summers in the bakery while she and Shari had attended college together. When she started Brown Sugar Bakery, it had come as a complete surprise, especially to Shari.

“I mean it. I’ll be fine,” Shari told them.

Lillian simply nodded toward her granddaughter, hoping she would be able to stand true to her word.

Chapter 3

She’d changed to flat black shoes with thick rubber soles that would grip the floor so there would be no slipping and falling. Her jacket and top had also been changed to a short-sleeved black T-shirt with the word DIVA scrawled across her delectable breasts in white rhinestones.

Malik continued to watch as Belinda went directly to the third hook on the rack that held their coats and jackets or whatever else they decided to hang up on any given day. Her apron was always on this hook and nothing was on the two hooks surrounding it. Belinda had a thing about her apron touching street clothes so nobody hung their stuff near hers. She pulled the apron over her head, reaching behind her back to tie it in place. He smiled each time he saw her put that on, he couldn’t help it.

“What are you laughing at?” she asked, her brows immediately wrinkling with a frown.

“You,” he replied, moving from where he’d been standing across the room to the double Sub-Zero refrigerator.

“I wasn’t aware I looked that funny,” was her cool retort.

Malik almost laughed again but knew better. There was only so far you could push Belinda and he wasn’t trying to get on her bad side. It wasn’t quite noon yet so they had a lot of hours to work together in the kitchen.

Shari was traveling with a delivery of two cakes that replicated sculptures by an up-and-coming artist that were being shown at a gallery in Bridgeport. Drake had closed himself in his office, making more moves where the bakery was concerned, no doubt. He was definitely dedicated to the business. As were the rest of the Draysons. They were a close-knit family, the business holding them as strong as their familial bond.

That left him and Belinda in the kitchen today to get out the orders. Carter was expected, but there was no exact time one could ever expect Carter. He worked his own hours, which were usually long and rigorous since he was always striving to achieve more, even though he was already a master at his craft.

“You don’t look funny,” he said when he’d closed the refrigerator, carrying the rolls of fondant over to the working table. “You look really cute in your Betty Boop apron.” It was an honest assessment, one he usually kept to himself. Today, however, Malik had the urge to go out on a limb.

“It was a gift,” she said, slapping her hands down over the apron. Too hard to be an attempt at wiping something off, more likely she thought she could erase Betty Boop’s voluptuously shaped body from the material.

“A very nice gift. Who gave it to you?” he asked as he worked.

Belinda had finally stopped touching the apron and obviously decided to get to work herself. There were two full sheet cakes on the other end of the table. She picked up a bowl of buttercream icing and a spatula and moved closer to the table, on the opposite side from Malik.

“My father.”

“You a Betty Boop fan?”

“Yes.”

It was cordial conversation, the likes of which he and Belinda had gone through on more than one occasion. It wasn’t normally this stiff, even though Belinda was not a fan of conversing while she was working. But Malik sensed there was something bothering her today. She was even more reserved than normal.

He retrieved a marble cutting board and rolled out the first layer of pea-green fondant. Using the rolling pin, he began the painstaking process of smoothing it out just another layer or so before he would drape it over the golf course cake he was working on.

“I can like Betty Boop if I want to. I’m not so stuck-up that I don’t know a simple cartoon character when it’s splattered on the front of my apron,” she said abruptly.

Malik had looked up at her, not speaking for a moment. She hadn’t even gazed at him, just kept scooping icing onto that spatula and gently smoothing it onto the cake. It was amazing how much pent-up emotion she was holding on to. He could see it in the stiffness of her shoulders, the stern set of her lips. And yet, her hands were supersteady, smoothing icing in lengthy strokes, making sure the cake was covered evenly.

“You can like whatever you want. That makes you decisive, not stuck-up.” And yet he wondered who’d called her stuck-up, and if they’d had the guts to do so to her face.

“Right,” she said slapping the spatula into the icing bowl. She turned the cake, surveying it.

“If you tell me who, I’ll gladly punch the person who called you stuck-up,” he offered with a serious face. “Providing it’s not a female.”

The edge of her lips twitched and he knew she wanted to smile. He’d seen her smile before, had received a sucker punch to his gut each time. This one, albeit small, was hard earned. Something was really bothering her.

“It’s not worth it,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “His loss.”

The last was spoken in a softer tone. So much so Malik had barely heard it. After only a few minutes of trying to phrase his question just right, he asked, “So a guy you were dating called you stuck-up. Why? Because you weren’t into him?”

She’d been making sure the tip was properly attached to the tube and had just been about to apply the border to the cake when she paused. Her head turned to the side and she looked at him. Even on Belinda the white hair caps they were required to wear at all times in the kitchen looked cute.

“How did you know it was a man?”

“Because you’re not the type of female to get bothered by what another female says about you. Besides, if it were a female, you would have simply cursed her out and kept it moving.”

She chuckled. “You’re right about that.”

He’d seen Belinda tear down jealous females with a look and a few words spoken in the coolest voice. She wasn’t the screaming and hollering type, nor was she into physical altercations. But she was no doormat, either. Anybody coming at her with smart words should prepare to get an earful. So it had to be a man that had said this to her. A dumb-ass man that most likely needed an eye-opener to see the error of his ways. Malik would be more than happy to open his eye for him—or close it permanently.

“It’s nothing. Just another date gone wrong. I should probably start my own reality show. Surely my love life is entertaining at best.”

Her love life. How long had Malik been thinking about Belinda’s love life? Too damned long. Belinda Drayson-Jones was not on the list of available women for him—no matter how attracted to her he was. How attracted to her he had been for some time now. But pursuing her would go against too many of his rules on dating, namely the no-drama rule. If he went after Belinda, Carter would totally go off. The men in this family were very protective of their women. And as his best friend, Carter would definitely have strong feelings about a relationship between Malik and Belinda—especially with Carter’s never-mix-work-with-pleasure rule. And then there was the fact that Belinda was Lillian’s favorite granddaughter. No secret there. The matriarch doted on everything Belinda did, because everything she did was always right.

Still, he couldn’t stop himself from saying, “You’re dating the wrong guys.”

“Tell me about it,” was her reply.

“Okay, I will.” He smiled to keep things on this light tone. “Just because he comes from a good family, with money and stature, has a high-paying job and drives a fancy car doesn’t mean he should be a candidate.”

“That is not how I select my dates.”

Malik gave her a knowing look. “You’re not going to date any man you think will tarnish the Drayson family name. So in your mind the man for you has to be influential, accomplished, handsome and debonair. Those are all superficial traits, flimsy as the society pages that describe him that way. Hence, big mistake for you.”

“Malik, really? Do you think I select men from the society pages? You make me sound desperate.”

“Not at all,” he said shaking his head. “You’re too beautiful to be desperate.”

Now, that was a first. Malik wasn’t shy when it came to women; he’d just been careful to stay in his lane where Belinda was concerned. With that comment he’d just swerved into the left lane and had to regain his control to keep from crashing.

“That’s sort of what he said. Apparently I’m also too beautiful to be so stuck-up.”

“Like I said, he’s an idiot. Which means you made a bad choice.”

“Apparently beauty has nothing to do with that that, huh?” she asked.

Malik wanted to let this conversation drop. He’d never talked to Belinda about the men in her life before. Actually, he’d made a point not to discuss that with her. Pity parties weren’t his thing so thinking about the woman he’d never had was a pastime he tried to do without.

She’d finished the yellow border of the cake and was just about to line up the previously made sugar roses when one of them slipped from her spatula and landed on the table instead of the cake. She cursed, her lips drawn tightly as she retrieved the rose that hadn’t been harmed and put it in its place.

“What you need to do is relax,” he told her. “Take some time to just let loose. You’ll forget about what’s-his-name taking his frustrations out on you.” And you can stop being perfect for just one minute, he added, though he kept that part to himself. Because Malik was sure the perfect routine was one tiring job.

“I don’t see how relaxing is going to make a difference in the man I choose to go out with.”

“I’m not saying it’ll make a difference in your choice of men, only you can make that change. But sometimes it’s good to just get away from all the pressures of life. How about this? I pick you up tonight at seven. We’ll go out and have a fun-filled evening at which time you will not think about what’s-his-name that didn’t have the good sense God gave him. You will not think about this bakery and what orders we have for tomorrow. You will not think about the competition that’s coming up or what you can do to contribute for us to win. Deal?”

* * *

First of all, Malik Anthony had always been too damned fine for his own good. As if it wasn’t enough that his body was perfectly toned, tall and sculpted like the basketball player he used to be. No, his honey-colored skin had to be smooth and enticing. His always-close-shaved head and dark brown eyes were like dangling a carrot in front of every female rabbit. The tattoos he had on each of his biceps should have been a turnoff and yet Belinda had always found the scorpion on his left bicep, which represented his zodiac sign, as well as the justice scales on his right bicep, which represented his mother’s zodiac sign, heartwarming instead of offensive.

His laid-back demeanor and almost-always-positive mood tended to give her a headache more often than not. Nobody could be in a good mood all the time. It just wasn’t possible. Life wasn’t that good. Especially not for him, Belinda presumed. Having his dream collapse and ending up here could not have been easy for Malik. But watching him move around this bakery, laughing and joking with Carter and working just as hard as the rest of them, she couldn’t tell he was suffering. Sure, it had been years and he’d probably gotten over the cruel hand fate had dealt him, but Belinda was positive he harbored some resentful feelings. He had to, right?

“I can’t go on a date with you. Besides we both have to be back here first thing tomorrow morning. We have a heavy schedule,” she told him matter-of-factly.